Eddie Izzard has condemned "aggressive, violent" Scottish Nationalists who forced him and Jim Murphy to abandon a rally in Glasgow.

In what one journalist described as "absolute chaos", the leader of Scottish Labour initially tried to deal with the protesters, who shouted "Red Tories out!" but he and Izzard escaped into a waiting car when the noise became too much to overcome.

The protesters, some waving SNP leaflets, shouted that Murphy was a "traitor" and a "war mongerer".

Izzard said afterwards: "It's OK having different opinions, but everyone should be able to put their opinion forward. This aggressive, this violent emotion, why violence?

"Don't have violence, we should just put our point of view forward and then everyone makes their choice on Thursday."

The comedian added: "This is democracy, it's all about voting. They should let the democratic process happen, it's called democracy, we're putting forward a point of view, we're asking people to vote Labour and they're scared of these words being heard.

"Why are they scared of that? Let everyone have their say. It's called democracy."

Murphy added: "This sort of aggressive nationalism should have no place in our election.

"We've got a few days until we can kick David Cameron out of office, a few days to change our country forever and we won't be silenced by this form of aggressive nationalism, it's anti-democratic."

A protester holds a sign by Murphy

Up close and personal

Channel 4's Alex Thomson asked the protesters who told him they were "socialists" and "nationalists". He said the disruption was down to a small group of them.

Today's protesters call themselves "socialists" and "nationalists" when I asked them